Nationally, on any given night, approximately 81,000 youth are confined to juvenile facilities and 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons. Approximately 1 in 10 young male high school dropouts is incarcerated or in juvenile detention. For African Americans, that number is 1 in 4. Research shows that just over two million youth under the age of 18 were arrested in 2008. Of these two million, about 95 percent had not been accused of violent crimes. In 2010, of the nearly 100,000 youth under the age of 18 who were serving time in a juvenile residential placement facility, 26 percent had been convicted of property crimes only, such as burglary, arson, or theft. Access to education both stems the tide of incarceration and improves inmates chances of re-acclimating to society after their release.
“Even without the research gold standard of double-blind randomized controlled trials, school-based restorative justice is considered a promising practice, with virtually all states in the nation having adopted it in some form. Very few studies, however, focus on the potential of restorative justice to reduce racial disparities in school discipline. Oakland, California, and Denver, Colorado, are leading the way.”
Salon
April 21, 2019
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